Up, Up and Awaaay Trivia Quiz

Answer: Adolphe Pegoud

Adolphe Pegoud became France's, and the world's, first flying ace in July, 1915. After he had downed five enemy aircraft, French newspapers came up with the term "l'as" (the ace) to describe him. He downed a sixth plane before he was himself killed when shot down on 31 August 1915, by a German flyer whom he had taught to fly before the war broke out.

Answer: Vostok

The Vostok (translates as 'east') spacecraft was developed by the Soviet Union to be used as a camera platform for a spy satellite program and as a manned spacecraft. The basic design was used for about forty years.There were six manned spaceflights in the Vostok program, with Gagarin's being the first on April 12, 1961.

Answer: Jean-Marie Coutelle

First used during the French Revolution, balloons for military purposes were developed by Jean-Marie Coutelle, a French engineer. In 1794 he was named first officer of the Company of Aeronauts and built balloons to help the armies of the French revolution. He used one as a reconnaissance tool in the battle of Mainz, against the Austrians in 1795, and spent much time with Napoleon during his conquests.

Answer: Fritz von Opel

A third generation automobile company owner, Fritz von Opel experimented with all sorts of rocket-powered vehicles. As well as testing rocket cars and boats, von Opel flew a rocket-powered airplane at Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, on September 30, 1929. It stayed aloft for 75 seconds. He also built and test drove a rocket-powered motorcycle named "The Monster". Indeed!

Answer: SR-71 Blackbird

The Lockheed SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft, nicknamed "Blackbird", was developed by the United States as a spy plane to replace earlier planes which were susceptible to attacks by aircraft or missiles. The SR-71 was capable of speeds in excess of three times the speed of sound.

In 1976, one of the planes set a record speed for air-breathing aircraft of 2,193 miles per hour (3,529 km/hr); during the same test period the plane also set an altitude record of 85,068 feet (25,929 meters). They literally could fly away from any threat.

The planes were retired in 1998; if there is a replacement for them, it's a well-kept secret.

Answer: 1910

Learning how to fly in 1910, 24-year old Eugene Ely soon met Captain Washington Chambers, whose task it was to investigate military uses for aviation within the U.S. Navy. The two investigated the possibility of launching an aircraft from a ship, including asking the Wright brothers if they would help.

The brothers quickly distanced themselves, citing such a plan as "dangerous and foolhardy." On November 14, 1910, from a wooden platform constructed on the foredeck of the cruiser USS Birmingham, Ely flew from the ship near Hampton Roads, Virginia to Norfolk.

In January, 1911, Ely flew a plane from Camp Selfridge, California onto the cruiser USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay. Ely died after a plane crash two days before his 25th birthday in 1911.

Answer: Russia

After crashing a single-engined plane when the engine stopped because a mosquito had been drawn into the carburetor through a fuel line, Igor Sikorsky decided to design an airplane that had multiple engines. Working in his native Russia, Sikorsky designed and flew the four-engined Russky Vityaz in 1913. After emigrating to the United States in 1919, Sikorsky developed flying boats for Pan American Airways. He may be most remembered for his work with helicopters. Most helicopters today use the rotor blade articulation he invented in 1939.

Answer: 1860, Boston, Massachusetts

Samuel Archer King was a 19th century balloon hobbyist from Pennsylvania. He spent much time making balloon flights all over the northeastern United States. In Boston, Massachusetts, he met William Black, a photographer from New Hampshire. In 1860 they went aloft in King's balloon, the "Queen of the Air" and took two photographs of Boston "as the eagle and wild goose see it." Both of the photographs survive.

Answer: Graf Zeppelin

The German dirigible (or 'rigid airship') Graf Zeppelin (LZ-127) made the first around-the-world airship flight in 1929, starting and ending at the U.S. Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey. Built in Germany, the Graf Zeppelin, like many other airships of the time used Lakehurst as a frequent stopover point because of its superior facilities.

The Graf Zeppelin was a passenger craft but after the explosion of the Hindenburg at Lakehurst in 1937, with public confidence shattered, all dirigibles were taken out of service.

A large part of that decision was because the ships used highly-flammable hydrogen for bouyancy. Helium was safer but the United States controlled about 75% of the world's supply and refused to export it.

Answer: Tupolev

Many people think the Concorde was the first supersonic airliner but it was the Soviet Union's Tupolev Tu-144. The Tupolev had its first flight in December, 1968, two months before Concorde. Though the two planes looked alike, the Tupolev was said to be aerodynamically superior. It suffered many problems, including a spectacular crash at the 1973 Paris Air Show, in which 14 people were killed. The planes were taken out of passenger service in 1978; they were used as cargo planes until 1983 and used occasionally after that for space pilot training and research.